Grammar, syntax and morphology Books

Book SynopsisWhile other books focus on special internet registers, like tweets or texting, no previous study describes the full range of everyday registers found on the searchable web. These are the documents that readers encounter every time they do a Google search, from registers like news reports, product reviews, travel blogs, discussion forums, FAQs, etc. Based on analysis of a large, near-random corpus of web documents, this monograph provides comprehensive situational, lexical, and grammatical descriptions of those registers. Beginning with a coding of each document in the corpus, the description identifies the registers that are especially common on the searchable web versus those that are less commonly found. Multi-dimensional analysis is used to describe the overall patterns of linguistic variation among web registers, while the second half of the book provides an in-depth description of each individual register, including analyses of situational contexts and communicative purposes, togeTrade Review'By applying the multidimensional analysis framework to web registers, Biber and Egbert offer a long overdue full picture of language variation for what have probably become the most frequent ways modern society engages with language. This book is a valuable contribution not only to corpus linguistics and register studies but to modern linguistics as a whole.' Andrea Nini, University of Manchester'Overall, this monograph is impressive in extracting multi-dimensions to account for the register variation on the Web. Given its persuasive elaboration and innovative insights, this monograph is an invaluable asset for researchers and students in register variation, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics and other related studies.' Danping Wu, Discourse StudiesTable of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Corpus and methods; 3. A survey of the registers on the public searchable web; 4. Overall patterns of register variation on the searchable web: a multi-dimensional analysis; 5. Narrative registers; 6. Opinion, advice, and persuasion registers; 7. Informational descriptions, explanations, and procedures; 8. Oral registers; 9. The web as a continuous space of register variation; Appendix A. Linguistic features included in the multi-dimensional analysis; Appendix B. Lexicogrammatical features included in the key feature analysis; Appendix C. Descriptive statistics for the key feature analyses.

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Book SynopsisPreposition placement refers to the competition between preposition stranding (What is he talking about?) and pied-piping (About what is he talking?). This volume provides a full grammatical account of preposition placement in English, and will be of interest to syntacticans, second-language researchers, and those working on variation in English.Trade Review'… Hoffmann's book is a pleasure to read and the arguments are easy to follow. I recommend it highly to anyone who has ever wondered about preposition placement in English.' Hans C. Boas, English World-WideTable of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Data and methodology; 3. Case notes: independent factors; 4. Evidence I: corpus results; 5. Evidence II: experimental results; 6. Preposition placement: the case for a construction grammar account; 7. Conclusion: the verdict.

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Book SynopsisSomali is one of the Cushitic family of languages and the official language of Somalia. This practical grammar, published in 1905, was prepared by a former soldier with unique knowledge of the interior of the country and the different tribes making up the population.Table of ContentsPreface; Part I. Orthography; Part II. Accidence; Part III. Syntax of Simple Sentences; Part IV. Syntax of Compound Sentences; Examples of prose and verse; The dialects of the outcast tribes, Midgan and Yibir; Index.

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Book SynopsisAugust Schleicher (1821â68) is often credited with being the first scholar to apply a 'family tree' model to language groups. He had published extensively on individual European languages before his groundbreaking comparative Indo-European Compendium (also reissued in this series) appeared in German in 1861â2. The book was derived from his lectures, and was intended to save his students note-taking and copying from the blackboard. Each section begins with his reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European phonological or morphological feature, and then shows how this is reflected in a range of daughter languages. This abridged English translation, based on the German third edition, appeared in 1874â7. Produced for students of Greek and Latin philology, it focuses on the phonology and morphology of 'the original Indo-European language', Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, omitting Schleicher's extensive discussion of other languages and the comparative paradigms provided in the German edition. Volume 1Table of ContentsTranslator's preface; Preface to the first edition; Introduction: 1. Science of language; 2. Chief forms of language; 3. The life of a language; 4. The Indo-European languages; Part I. Grammar: 1. Vowels; 2. Consonants.

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Book SynopsisConstruction grammar (CxG) is a framework for syntactic analysis that takes constructions - pairings of form and meaning that range from the highly idiomatic to the very general - to be the building blocks of sentence meaning. Offering the first comprehensive introduction to CxG to focus on both English words and the constructions that combine them, this textbook shows students not only what the analyses of particular structures are, but also how and why those analyses are constructed, with each chapter taking the student step-by-step through the reasoning processes that yield the best description of a data set. It offers a wealth of illustrative examples and exercises, largely based on real language data, making it ideal for both self-study and classroom use. Written in an accessible and engaging way, this textbook will open up this increasingly popular linguistic framework to anyone interested in the grammatical patterns of English.Trade Review'Adopting the traditional perspective that constructions are at the heart of the grammar of English and other languages, Kim and Michaelis provide a detailed introduction to English syntax within the Sign-Based Construction Grammar framework (SBCG). They consider all the main syntactic phenomena of English, and in each area consider both what is assumed and why it is assumed. The book is a valuable addition to textbooks on English syntax. Anyone who learns about syntax from it will end up with considerable knowledge both of English syntax and of the SBCG framework.' Bob Borsley, Emeritus Professor, Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex'This is a thorough, textbook introduction to classic topics in English syntax, from raising and control to clefting. It needs to be praised for at least two reasons: it satisfies those who are keen on formalism but do not subscribe to the generative model and it brings to the fore the importance of constructions in syntactic analysis.' Cristiano Broccias, Professor of English Linguistics, University of GenoaTable of ContentsPreface; 1. What is a theory of english syntax about?; 2. Lexical and phrasal signs; 3. Syntactic forms, grammatical functions, and semantic roles; 4. Head, complements, modifiers, and argument structures; 5. Combinatorial construction rules and principles; 6. Noun phrases and agreement; 7. Raising and control constructions; 8. Auxiliary and related constructions; 9. Passive constructions; 10. Interrogative and wh-question constructions; 11. Relative clause constructions; 12. Tough, extraposition and cleft constructions; Afterword; Appendix; Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisSyntax the study of sentence structure has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.Trade Review'This magisterial overview of the historical development and current state of generative syntax is balanced, wide-ranging, intermittently controversial, always constructive, and consistently useful to neophyte and seasoned researcher alike.' Neil Smith, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University College LondonTable of ContentsPart I. Background: 1. Introduction Marcel den Dikken; 2. Brief overview of the history of generative syntax Howard Lasnik and Terje Lohndal; 3. Goals and methods of generative syntax Frederick Newmeyer; Part II. Modern Generative Approaches to the Study of Sentence Structure: 4. Principles and parameters theory and minimalism Željko Bošković; 5. Minimalism and optimality theory Hans Broekhuis and Ellen Woolford; 6. Lexical-functional grammar Peter Sells; 7. Phrase structure grammar James Blevins and Ivan Sag; 8. Tree adjoining grammar Robert Frank; Part III. Syntactic Structures: 9. Argument structure and argument structure alternations Gillian Ramchand; 10. The syntax of predication Caroline Heycock; 11. Lexical categories and (extended) projection Norbert Corver; 12. The functional structure of the sentence, and cartography Luigi Rizzi; 13. Adverbial and adjectival modification Artemis Alexiadou; Part IV. Syntactic Processes: Their Nature, Locality, and Motivation: 14. Economy of derivation and representation Samuel David Epstein, Hisatsugu Kitahara, Miki Obata and T. Daniel Seely; 15. Syntax, binding and patterns of anaphora Ken Safir; 16. Raising and control Maria Polinsky; 17. Agreement and case Mark Baker; 18. The locality of syntactic dependencies Marcel den Dikken and Antje Lahne; Part V. Syntax and the Internal Interfaces: 19. Ellipsis phenomena Jeroen van Craenenbroeck and Jason Merchant; 20. Tense, aspect and modality Karen Zagona; 21. Negation and negative polarity Hedde Zeijlstra; 22. The syntax of scope and quantification Veneeta Dayal; 23. Syntax, information structure and prosody Daniel Büring; Part VI. Syntax and the External Interfaces: 24. Microsyntactic variation Sjef Barbiers; 25. Parameters: the pluses and the minuses Rosalind Thornton and Stephen Crain; 26. Syntax and the brain Jon Sprouse and Ellen F. Lau.

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Book SynopsisRelative clauses play a hugely important role in analysing the structure of sentences. This book provides the first evidence that a unified analysis of the different types of relative clauses is possible - a step forward in our understanding. Using careful analyses of a wide range of languages, Cinque argues that the relative clause types can all be derived from a single, double-headed, structure. He also presents evidence that restrictive, maximalizing, (''integrated'') non-restrictive, kind-defining, infinitival and participial RCs merge at different heights of the nominal extended projection. This book provides an elegant generalization about the structure of all relatives. Theoretically profound and empirically rich, it promises to radically alter the way we think about this subject for years to come.Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Preliminaries; 2. Deriving the cross-linguistically attested types of restrictive/maximalizing relative clauses from a double-headed structure; 3. Deriving the other types of relative clauses from a double-headed structure; 4. 'Strategies' for the realization of the internal head; 5. Some residual questions; Conclusion; Appendix. Possible evidence for the existence of non-'raising' derivations.

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Book SynopsisThis book contains a state-of-the-art review of current topics in neurolinguistics and provides the first full-length treatment of the relationship between language and neural oscillations. It develops an innovative framework for capturing neural behaviour. It will interest students and researchers concerned with how the brain processes language.Trade ReviewA wonderfully clear synthesis connecting neural oscillations and hierarchical structure: one of the first realistic attempts to understand how activities in the brain shape syntax. This engaging book provides real substance to the Minimalist Program in that it exemplifies the notion of `third factor.' Very insightful and a delight to read! Elly Van Gelderen, Professor of Linguistics, Arizona State UniversityMurphy takes us on an exciting journey through the neurobiology of language towards the neural codes for phrase structure. The result is a tremendously deep yet fully accessible state-of-the-art overview that also presents a novel neurocomputational model of language. Kleanthes Grohmann, Professor of Biolinguistics, University of CyprusTable of ContentsPreface; Introduction; 1. Theory and praxis; 2. Brain dynamics of language; 3. A neural code for language; 4. Conclusions and future directions; Glossary.

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Book SynopsisThis thought-provoking book offers an accessible introduction to the main discoveries and theories about the nature and wonder of language. It is aimed at general readers and undergraduates who are curious about linguistics and language. Purposefully written in a lively and direct style, technical terms are carefully introduced and explained.Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. How to make noises - phonetics; 2. How to organise noises - phonology; 3. How to build a word - morphology; 4. How to say absolutely anything you want to - syntax; 5. How to build a world - semantics; 6. How to influence people - pragmatics; 7. How to find lost languages - historical linguistics; 8. How to influence the right people - sociolinguistics; 9. How to lose a language and how to learn a language - psycholinguistics; 10. How to build a language - language typology and universals.

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Book SynopsisThis text illustrates how seemingly abstract stances on the nature of meaning can have significant and far-reaching linguistic consequences, leading to the detection of new facts and influencing the understanding of the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface.Table of ContentsPreface 1: The Two Souls of Discourse Representation Theory 2: Dynamic Binding 3: Extensions: Reconstruction, Topicalization, and Crossover 4: Presuppositions and Definites Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisA complete course in the syntactic structure of English. The edition offers coverage of areas such as appositive constructions, parasitic gaps and expanded coverage of cleft sentences and free relatives. It progresses from overview to major constructions and grammar with end-of-chapter exercises.Table of ContentsPreface to Second Edition Preface to First Edition Abbreviations and Special Symbols 1. Introduction 2. Overview of the Scheme of Syntactical Analysis Adopted Below 3. Some Tests for Deep and Surface Constituent Structure 4. Some Subject-Changing Transformations 5.Complements 6. Rule Interaction 7. Syntactic Categories 8. Auxiliary Verbs 9. Coordination 10. Surface Combinatoric Rules 11. Anaphora 12. The Structure of Noun Phrases 13. Relative Clauses 14. Interrogative Clauses 15. Principles Restricting and Extending the Application of Transformations 16. Other Types of Nondeclarative Sentences 17. Negation 18. Scope of Quantifiers and Negations 19. Adverbs 20. Comparative Constructions 21. Discourse Syntax 22. Patches and Syntactic Mimicry Selected Wrong Answers to Exercises References Index

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Book SynopsisNewmeyer persuasively defends the controversial theory of transformational generative grammar. Grammatical Theory is for every linguist, philosopher, or psychologist who is skeptical of generative grammar and wants to learn more about it. Newmeyer's formidable scholarship raises the level of debate on transformational generative grammar. He stresses the central importance of an autonomous formal grammar, discusses the limitations of discourse-based approaches to syntax, cites support for generativist theory in recent research, and clarifies misunderstood concepts associated with generative grammar.

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Book SynopsisPrinciples of Grammar and Learning is concerned with the nature of linguistic competence and with the cognitive structures underlying its acquisition and use. During the past several decades many linguists and psychologists have come to the conclusion that genetically determined categories and principles specific to language are needed to account for the form and acquisition of grammatical systems. William O'Grady argues here for quite a different conclusion, proposing that adequate grammars can be constructed from a conceptual base not specific to language. To support this thesis, O'Grady develops a well-articulated, single level, categorial-type grammar that he uses to analyze syntactic categories, extraction, anaphora, extraposition, and quantifier placement in English and other languages. He shows that such grammars can be constructed via general learning strategies from notions such as dependency, adjacency, precedence, and continuity, and that the available acquisition data point

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Book SynopsisIn this long-awaited bookthe first in a three-volume workDavid M. Perlmutter has co-authored and edited ten essays that introduce relational grammar, a novel conception of sentence structure that offers far-reaching conclusions for universal grammar. The basic ideas of relational grammar can be simply stated. First, grammatical relations such as 'subject of,' 'direct object of,' and 'indirect object of,' are needed to characterize the class of grammatical constructions in the clausal syntax of natural languages, to formulate universals of grammar, and to construct adequate and insightful grammars of individual languages. Second, the range of linguistic variation in word order and case patterns makes it impossible to define grammatical relations in terms of phrase structure configurations or case. Rather, grammatical relations must be taken as primitive notions of linguistic theory. The papers collected here take up the first of these ideas. They lay out the basic theoretical constructs of relational grammar and discuss three areas of grammaradvancement construction, raising, and clause union. In his introduction, Perlmutter discusses each of the papersmost of which are published here for the first timeand places them in thecontext of the whole of linguistic study.

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Book SynopsisIn Autolexical Syntax, Jerrold M. Sadock argues for a radical departure from the derivational model of grammar that has prevailed in linguistics for thirty years. He offers an alternative theory in which the various components of grammarin particular syntax, semantics, and morphologyare viewed as fully autonomous descriptive devices for various parallel dimensions of linguistic representation. The lexicon in this theory forges the connection between autonomous representations in that a typical lexeme plays a role in all three of the major components of the grammar. Sadock's principal innovation is the postulation of a uniform set of interface conditions that require the several orthogonal representations of a single natural language expression to match up in certain ways. Through a detailed application of his theory to the twin morphosyntactic problems of cliticization and incorporation, Sadock shows that very straightforward accounts are made possible by the nonderivational model. He

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Book SynopsisIn Autolexical Syntax, Jerrold M. Sadock argues for a radical departure from the derivational model of grammar that has prevailed in linguistics for thirty years. He offers an alternative theory in which the various components of grammarin particular syntax, semantics, and morphologyare viewed as fully autonomous descriptive devices for various parallel dimensions of linguistic representation. The lexicon in this theory forges the connection between autonomous representations in that a typical lexeme plays a role in all three of the major components of the grammar. Sadock's principal innovation is the postulation of a uniform set of interface conditions that require the several orthogonal representations of a single natural language expression to match up in certain ways. Through a detailed application of his theory to the twin morphosyntactic problems of cliticization and incorporation, Sadock shows that very straightforward accounts are made possible by the nonderivational model. He

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Book SynopsisPresents an analysis of the classic problem of constraints on pronominal anaphora within the framework of cognitive grammar. This work argues that these constraints can be explained in terms of semantic interactions between nominals and the contexts in which they are embedded.

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Book SynopsisAn introduction to the study of children's language development that provides a uniquely accessible perspective on generative/universal grammar-based approaches.How children acquire language so quickly, easily, and uniformly is one of the great mysteries of the human experience. The theory of Universal Grammar suggests that one reason for the relative ease of early language acquisition is that children are born with a predisposition to create a grammar. This textbook offers an introduction to the study of children's acquisition and development of language from a generative/universal grammar-based theoretical perspective, providing comprehensive coverage of children's acquisition while presenting core concepts crucial to understanding generative linguistics more broadly. After laying the theoretical groundwork, including consideration of alternative frameworks, the book explores the development of the sound system of language—children's perception and production o

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive theory of selective opacity effects—configurations in which syntactic domains are opaque to some processes but transparent to others—within a Minimalist framework.In this book, Stefan Keine investigates in detail “selective opacity”— configurations in which syntactic domains are opaque to some processes but transparent to others—and develops a comprehensive theory of these syntactic configurations within a contemporary Minimalist framework. Although such configurations have traditionally been analyzed in terms of restrictions on possible sequences of movement steps, Keine finds that analogous restrictions govern long-distance dependencies that do not involve movement. He argues that the phenomenon is more widespread and abstract than previously assumed. He proposes a new approach to such effects, according to which probes that initiate the operation Agree are subject to “horizons,” which terminate their searches.

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Book SynopsisQuotatives considers the phenomenon quotation from a wealth of perspectives. It consolidates findings from different strands of research, combining formal and functional approaches for the definition of reported discourse and situating the phenomenon in a broader typological and sociolinguistic perspective.Trade Review“Overall, the wide scope of this book means that it will be of interest not only to scholars of language variation and change and those working on the sociolinguistics of globalisation but also to researchers working on the study of reported speech within many other sub-disciplines of linguistics.” (Journal of Sociolinguistics, 20 March 2015) “These distinctive perspectives provide the readership with fresh food for thought on the exciting and important topic of quoting and quotatives, and with a more nuanced knowledge base as regards the linguistic properties, social uses and pragmatic functions. In brief, this volume is a treasure trove and highly recommended for those who are keen on communication studies, discourse analysis and sociology.” (Discourse Studies, 1 January 2015)Table of ContentsAcknowledgements vii List of Figures xi List of Tables xiii 1 Introduction: What’s New about the New Quotatives? 1 The History of Innovative Quotatives 4 Why? 12 2 You Can Quote Me On That: Defining Quotation 34 Defining Quotation 37 Direct versus Indirect Quotes 55 Why Does itMatter? The Ramifications of Variable Definition 64 3 Variation and Change in the Quotative System: The Global versus the Local 89 Tracing the Global Attestation of Innovative Quotatives 90 Investigating Models of Diffusion 93 Investigating the Global Reality of Innovative Quotatives 97 Putting It All Together 134 4 Quotation across the Generations: A Short History of Speech and Thought Reporting 148 Tracing Quotation in Tyneside English across the Past 60 Years 150 Quotations across the Decades: Tracing the Changes in the Variable Grammar 166 How to Create Variability in a Low Entropy System? 183 5 Ideologies and Attitudes to Newcomer Quotatives 198 Don’t Sound Stupid, Stop Saying like 198 Language Ideologies: Facts and Fiction 202 Testing Attitudes towards the Innovative Quotatives 207 What Type of Person would use such a Form? Testing Associations with Personality Traits 210 Where do be like and go come from? Investigating the Perceptual Geographies of Innovative Quotatives 221 Social Perceptions Associated with be like and go 227 Youth Inarticulateness and the Pedagogical Debate 234 6 Lessons Learned from Research on Quotation 245 The Innovative Quotatives: A New, Uniform and Unique Phenomenon? 245 The Elephant in the Room: Situating Quotation in Linguistic Modularity 251 Tackling Some Illusions 256 Tracing the Present and Future of Quotative Forms 258 Conclusion 270 Appendix 1 Linear Regression Analysis Investigating the Conditioning Factors on the Quotative System in the US and the UK 278 Appendix 2 Alternative Cross-Tabulations 279 Appendix 3 Social Attitudes Survey 284 Index 295

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Book SynopsisThis new edition is a complete rewriting and reshaping of the original, with an up-to-date history of the original project and a comprehensive guide to the entries and their constituent parts.

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Book SynopsisOrganised with the assistance of an international advisory committee of medievalists, this is a standard guide to the Latin language and literature of the period from c 200 AD to 1500. It should be useful for the study of Latin texts and documents in any fields of medieval studies.

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Book SynopsisThe first carefully graded introductory textbook of Sahidic Coptic to appear in English: no other grammar is designed specifically as a textbook, with lessons and drill exercises. Included are a series of graded lessons with exercises covering grammar and vocabulary, a selection of annotated texts, and a comprehensive glossary of Sahidic Coptic.

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Book SynopsisA detailed study of Gilchrist's grammatical praxis which presents a picture of the complex relationship between grammatical inquiry and the politics of colonial discourse in the early years of the Indian Empire.Trade Review"Steadman-Jones deftly weaves his biographical, political and linguistic strands into an engrossing account." (Historiographia Linguistica, April 2009)Table of ContentsPreface. Introduction. Part I: Contexts:. 1. The Political Context. 2. The Personal Context. 3. The Intellectual Context. Part II: Case Studies:. 4. Noun Case. 5. The Verbal System. 6. Dialogues and Familiar Phrases. 7. Etymology. Conclusion. Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn this book, two related phenomena are studied: presupposition and anaphora. Dynamic semantics is by now widely accepted as a first-rate foundation for such an exercise and it forms the backbone of most of the work in this book. A recurring additional theme of the present book is the usefulness of techniques from partial logic in the treatment of both phenomena. Rather than adding completely new semantic theories to the present gamut of theories, the author discusses a number of existing approaches which aim at accounting for the behavior of presuppositions and/or anaphors, makes improvements where necessary, and compares the results. Presupposition and Anaphora starts with an introduction to a number of dynamic semantic theories and their correlations, paying special attention to the treatment of disjunctions and negations. Subsequently, presuppositions are studied in the context of partial logics, Montague Grammar and dynamic semantics.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; 1. Introductuion; 2. Anaphora and discourse semantics; 3. Negation and disjunction in DRT; 4. Presupposition and partiality; 5. Presupposition and montague grammar; 6. Presupposition and discourse semantics; 7. Presupposition and determindness; 8. Concluding remarks; Bibliography; Subject index; Name index.

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Book SynopsisThis book offers a Minimalist analysis of certain syntactic phenomena in Russian associated with negation. These phenomena include the distribution of morphologically negative words and the pattern of Negative Concord they exhibit (whereby multiple occurrences of negative words are interpreted as only one instance of negation); the Genitive of Negation (the case marking on the internal argument of negated verbs); expletive negation (formal negation without negative content), and negated Yes/No questions (including a previously undiscussed pattern of expletive negation effects observed in certain types of Yes/No questions). The end result is a formalization of the status of negation within the phrase structure of Russian that not only contributes relevant Slavic data to the pool of negation data, but also sheds new light on the syntactic expression of negation universally.Table of Contents1. Negation phenomena in Russian; 2. The minimalist program; 3. Negative constituents in Russian; 4. The genitive of negation: Expletiveness and the asymmetry of Russian negation; 5. The expression of negation; References; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis handbook develops a methodology for writing and testing wide coverage, maintainable grammars. Parallel grammars for English, French, and German using Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) as a framework are used as an example. Parallel grammars are grammars with similar coverage in different languages which explore how similarly one can treat various phenomena cross-linguistically. This issue of the parallelism of the analyses is a central concern in maximizing portability and extendability of the analyses to other grammars and languages. For the grammar writer, this handbook provides a useful guide to the range of constructions to be considered in a wide-coverage grammar and the theoretical and practical issues which their implementation gives rise to. The interaction between theory and implementation is discussed, including the implementation of new theoretical developments in LFG such as coordination via distribution, functional uncertainty, and a featural analysis of auxiliaries.Table of ContentsIntroduction; The grammars: General analyses; The clause; Verbal elements; Nominal elements; Determiners; Adjectives; Prepositional phrases; Adverbial elements; Coordination; Grammar engineering; Overview; Architecture and user interface; Modularity, maintainability and transparency; Ambiguity/overgeneration; Measuring performance; Finite state technology; Concluding remarks; Appendix.

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Book SynopsisMixed category constructions like the English verbal gerund involve words that seem to be central members of more than one part of speech and so pose a problem for the standard view of syntactic categories. This book presents a novel analysis of this and similar mixed category constructions in languages including Quechua, Tibetan, Arabic, Fijian, Dagaare, and Jacaltec. Under this analysis, verbal gerunds share the selectional properties of verbs and the distributional properties of nouns. Since different dimensions of grammatical information can vary independently, the behavior of mixed categories creates no paradox. But, while these dimensions are in principle independent, in fact certain types of mixed categories are quite common in the world's languages, while others are rare or nonexistent. The cross-linguistic variation can best be accounted for by means of a lexical categorial prototype. Specifically, nouns prototypically denote objects and verbs prototypically denote actions.Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. English verbal gerunds; 3. Coherent nominalizations; 4. Conclusions and consequences; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisMixed category constructions like the English verbal gerund involve words that seem to be central members of more than one part of speech and so pose a problem for the standard view of syntactic categories. This book presents a novel analysis of this and similar mixed category constructions in languages including Quechua, Tibetan, Arabic, Fijian, Dagaare, and Jacaltec. Under this analysis, verbal gerunds share the selectional properties of verbs and the distributional properties of nouns. Since different dimensions of grammatical information can vary independently, the behavior of mixed categories creates no paradox. But, while these dimensions are in principle independent, in fact certain types of mixed categories are quite common in the world's languages, while others are rare or nonexistent. The cross-linguistic variation can best be accounted for by means of a lexical categorial prototype. Specifically, nouns prototypically denote objects and verbs prototypically denote actions.Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. English verbal gerunds; 3. Coherent nominalizations; 4. Conclusions and consequences; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis volume explores the grammatical structure of sentences in Swedish, presenting an account of the order of the words and phrases within the clause. This analysis is presented from the perspective of Optimality Theory within the theoretical framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. This framework provides syntactic analysis in terms of functions within the clause such as subject, object, and also topic and focus, as well as part-of-speech analysis in terms of noun phrase, verb phrase, and so on, and the hierarchical structure of those constituents. Sells argues for the superiority of a base-generated account of the phenomenon known as Object Shift, and shows how an account based on the notion of Alignment within a ranked constraint system provides a natural account of it. The nature of the Verb-Second sentence pattern and syntactic differences between Swedish and the other Mainland Scandinavian languages are also considered.Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Clause structure in Swedish; 3. Object shift; 4. The formal OT-LFG analysis; 5. Theoretical comparison.

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Book SynopsisThis book collects recent work in OT-LFG (Optimality Theoretic Lexical Functional Grammar) which is developing the empirical coverage of the approach as well as the formal foundations of the OT approach. The papers deal with phenomena in a wide range of languages, including English, Fore, Hindi, Kashmiri, Korean, Marathi. Central to the general approach is the issue of typological implication and the notion of markedness. Additionally, some papers here take up issues related to language production and comprehension (in terms of bidirectional optimization), and some explore the formal foundations. This is a collection of papers which involve a new approach to syntax bringing together Optimality Theory (OT) and Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). Its importance is precisely in this new approach, which differs from other OT approaches to syntax.Table of ContentsIntroduction Joan Bresnan; 1. Linking, optionality, and ambiguity in Marathi: an optimality theory account Ash Asudeh; 2. The emergence of the unmarked order Hanjung Lee; 3. Phrase structure, information structure, and the mismatch resolution Hye-Won Choi; 4. Case and word order in Fore (still under revision) Cathryn Donohue; 5. Kashmiri case clitics and person hierarchy effects Devyani Sharma; 6. Yukiko Morimoto; 7. An architecture for OT-based linking theory in LFG Anette Frank, Mary Dalrymple and Miriam Butt; 8. Two ways of formalizing OT Syntax in the LFG framework Jonas Kuhn; 9. Optimality theory style constraint ranking in large-scale LFG grammars Anette Frank, Tracy Holloway King, Jonas Kuhn and John Maxwell.

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Book SynopsisMuch of the work in modern formal linguistics is concerned with giving mathematically precise accounts of human languages. Such work is particularly suited for research that involves language processing with computers. This book provides an introduction to one particularly popular approach, typed-feature structure formalisms. Implementing Typed Feature Structure Grammars includes informal (but rigorous) descriptions of typed-feature structure logic as well as formal definitions. The book covers the basics of grammar development by introducing different frameworks to the reader such as categorial grammar and Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, and demonstrates how these can be implemented. Semantic representation is also introduced. The book includes a CD of the LKB system software that allows the reader to experiment with various grammars and learn the details of the formalism. The CD is compatible with Windows, MacOS, Linux and Solaris, and includes a full user manual.

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Book SynopsisJapanese and Korean are typologically quite similar, so a linguistic phenomenon in one language often has a counterpart in the other. The papers in this volume are intended to further compare and/or contrast research in both languages. This volume is a collection of papers presented at the 9th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, Ohio 1999. Some papers explore the historical roots of japanese linguistics and its impact on modern day Japanese and Korean, others investigate the languages' vowel and consonant systems. Contributors also discuss the importance of syllable structure, difficulties in possession construction, acquisition of passive construction in Japanese, and the influence of sentence structure on the interpretation of Korean words.

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Book SynopsisRapid innovations in digital technology deeply influence views on language and information processing. Any new developments raise many questions for researchers, and can help shed new light on old approaches. Logic is a tool that researchers can use to gain insight into investigations of the relation between form and content, the ways that linguistic utterances change information content and the dynamics of information change. This text presents a broad range of logical investigations into language and information processing. Topics covered include: the notion of "reasonable belief" in commonsense reasoning, perpetual reports in natural languages, the logic of creation and modification of objects, the verification of temporal aspects of reactive systems, analysis of scope by combining model theory and situation semantics, and semantic analysis of the information articulation of linguistic statements.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of work in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar focuses on interfaces between different grammatical components; its 15 papers explore interface phenomena such as auxiliary contraction in English, analysis of illocutionary force in HPSG, syntactic and semantic aspects of Korean relative clause formation, negation in Welsh and several others.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of work in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar focuses on interfaces between different grammatical components; its 15 papers explore interface phenomena such as auxiliary contraction in English, analysis of illocutionary force in HPSG, syntactic and semantic aspects of Korean relative clause formation, negation in Welsh and several others.

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Book SynopsisBeyond Alternations provides a unified account of the semantic effects of the German applicative ("be-") construction. Using natural data from a varietyof corpora, the authors propose that this pattern is inherently meaningful and that its meaning provides the basis for creative extensions.

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Book SynopsisIn addition to commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, this volume also serves as a tribute to James D. McCawley, a giant of 20th-century linguistics and a pioneer in East Asian scholarship. The 46 papers collected here bring together formalists, functionalists, discourse analysts, and cognitive linguists to examine the Japanese and Korean languages from a variety of perspectives.

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents the first large-scale treatment of German syntax along the framework of lexical functional grammar (LFG), which well suits German's rich morphology and flexible word order. Berman addresses both empirical and theoretical concerns, examining phenomena that have long been discussed in the literature yet remain controversial. The principles of LFG are applied to, and occasionally challenged by, three main areas of theoretical interest: subjects, traces and complement clauses. This reaches central topics of German syntax, such as phrase structure, "subjectless" clauses, expletives, agreement, weak crossover, long-distance dependencies, distribution of subordinated clauses, correlative pronouns, and embedded clauses.

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents the first large-scale treatment of German syntax along the framework of lexical functional grammar (LFG), which well suits German's rich morphology and flexible word order. Berman addresses both empirical and theoretical concerns, examining phenomena that have long been discussed in the literature yet remain controversial. The principles of LFG are applied to, and occasionally challenged by, three main areas of theoretical interest: subjects, traces and complement clauses. This reaches central topics of German syntax, such as phrase structure, "subjectless" clauses, expletives, agreement, weak crossover, long-distance dependencies, distribution of subordinated clauses, correlative pronouns, and embedded clauses.

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Book SynopsisThis collection presents readers with the main thrust of current research on Chinese languages from the perspective of formal linguistics. Contributors offer in-depth studies of important theoretical issues and contemporary questions, including reflexivity, modifiers and nominal structures, tense, onset change, suffixation, verbal constructions, and first-language acquisition, making this a valuable resource in formal Chinese linguistics today.

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